Black Dogs Read online

  A guy with pork-chop sideburns and thick glasses stopped in front of Danny. His frizzy hair blocked our view of Frenchy.

  “Wow, man. Do you work here?”

  “Yeah,” Danny said.

  He stepped forward into the kid's face.

  “I need you to exit this floor immediately.”

  “I don't have to go anywhere.”

  Danny leaned in closer.

  “You can go down the elevator or through a window. What's it gonna be?”

  “You can't fucking do that—”

  Danny shoved him before he stopped talking. The guy reeled backward, tangled his legs with two men sitting on the floor sniffing something off a mirror and crashed onto the ground. Everyone started arguing.

  “Clear the floor, assholes,” Danny yelled.

  Frenchy stood in the hallway talking to Richard Cole. He looked taller than I remembered. He leaned in the doorway, rubbing a thick beard. His white shirt hung unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. Everything about his body language said he didn't want Frenchy bothering him. He crossed his arms while Frenchy talked. We couldn't hear what Frenchy said but before he finished Richard waved him off and started to close the door. Frenchy quickly opened the guitar case.

  Richard glanced at the Les Paul just before he closed the door. He looked impressed. Without taking his eyes off the guitar he signaled for Frenchy to stay put then shut his door.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Alex asked me.

  “I don't know.” I was worried.

  Frenchy looked over and shrugged. The door opened again and Richard stepped out. He pulled the door closed behind him and led Frenchy down to the end of the hallway. They stopped and Richard knocked softly then leaned forward and said something through the closed door. The door opened slowly and Richard led Frenchy inside.

  “Okay. You know what to do.”

  “Sure do.”

  Alex pulled a thin piece of metal the size of a credit card out of his pocket and palmed it as we moved quickly to room 2110. Alex crouched behind me jimmying the door open. The metal card scraped again and again through the door frame but the lock wouldn't give.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked without looking back.

  “I'm getting it. I'm getting it,” Alex mumbled.

  Danny patrolled the hallway, shoving a herd of Zeppelin fans into elevators. A tiny girl tried to slip past him and he lunged, snagging the back of her shirt and hurling her into the elevator. Now and then he barked orders into his broken walkie-talkie.

  “HQ, this is Hall Patrol. We have a situation on twenty-one. Backup requested.”

  Alex worked on the door behind me.

  “Got it,” he whispered. “Going in.”

  Alex slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. This was it. Grab the money and get the fuck out. I glanced frantically back and forth from the door behind us to the door up the hall where Frenchy had disappeared with Richard. A few minutes later Alex popped his head out from the doorway.

  “I can't find it, man. There's nothing here.”

  Danny walked toward us.

  “All clear. Let's get this and go.”

  “It's not here, man. I can't find anything.”

  “You dumbass,” Danny spit. “I'm going in.”

  Danny barged into the room, shoving Alex out of the way and banging the door against the wall as he hurled it open.

  “Shit. Watch the hallway,” I said to Alex.

  He nodded and jogged off down the hallway.

  I entered the room. Danny stood on the other side ripping empty drawers out of a long dresser and throwing them on the floor. The contents of Richard's luggage lay dumped in a pile next to an overturned nightstand.

  “Where's the fucking money, asshole?” Danny snarled as I shut the door behind me.

  “Relax. It's gotta be here.”

  “No. It's not. I've looked fucking everywhere.”

  “All right. Just calm down.”

  “Fuck you, Patrick,” he heaved. “Are you guys trying to pull something on me?”

  He stopped and glanced around the room.

  “Wait,” he muttered to himself. “Maybe there's a safe.”

  He knocked a painting off the wall over the TV and another from over the bed. Nothing.

  “I ain't leaving here without that money,” he shouted.

  He spun toward me and pulled a small silver pistol from his waistband.

  “All right,” he said calmly. “New fucking plan.”

  “Whoa, Danny! Take it easy.”

  I backed up toward the door.

  “Here's what we're doing. Me and you wait in the shower for this New York City asshole to return.”

  “I think he's actually British.”

  “I don't give a shit!” he screamed.

  He hurled a drawer at the bed, where it bounced off the mattress and flipped onto the floor. His fist closed tight around the gun.

  “When he comes back we stick him up and make him give us the money.”

  “No fucking way. I'm not doing it.”

  “Yes, you fucking are,” Danny spoke slowly.

  He held the gun at his side. Every muscle tightened as Danny erupted. He screamed and swung his arm wildly, sweeping everything on the dresser to the floor. He tore the curtains off the wall and hurled them at the TV. His eyes locked on the TV then turned to the window. I could read the thought from across the room. I had to stop him.

  He lunged toward the TV and his foot hooked on an empty drawer and a pile of clothes, sending him stumbling into the corner of the bed. He fell face-first onto the mattress and bounced off onto the floor with a grunt. I watched from the other side of the bed for him to get up.

  He rose with a scream. He squatted and grabbed the bottom of the bed with both hands and flipped it over. It spun, taking the nightstand with it in a tornado of pillows and paisley bedspread. My eye caught a silver glint in the air.

  I dove onto my stomach and searched through the sheets. My fingertips hit cool metal and I wedged myself between the mattress and the wall to reach it. My fingers fumbled, burrowing through the sheets, until they pulled the object into the palm of my hand. Danny hurdled over the bed frame toward me, the gun tight in his fist. I shot my arm into the air, the metal key ring dangling on my finger. Danny stood over me and then lowered the gun as he read the tag:

  SAFE DEPOSIT BOX 51.

  NINETEEN

  CRUSH OF PARTIERS IN THE LOBBY LOOKED AT MY HAND AND GOT THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY. WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY TIME TO WASTE AND I KNEW WHEN I GRABBED THE ALL-ACCESS LED ZEPPELIN BACKSTAGE PASS FROM RICHARD'S LUGGAGE THAT THE SIGHT OF IT WOULD CAUSE THE CROWD TO PART. EVERY EYE FOLLOWED THE PASS AS ME AND DANNY BURST THROUGH THE LOBBY. A FEW FANS TRIED TO TALK TO US OR HIT US UP FOR TICKETS TO THE SHOW BUT I SHRUGGED THEM OFF WITH A LINE ABOUT “OFFICIAL ZEPPELIN BUSINESS.”

  The clerk at the front desk didn't look any happier than earlier. In fact, he looked worse. While we were upstairs, someone had dropped a bottle of red wine on the thick, cream-colored carpet and someone else had pissed in the back hallway. The clerk looked from me to Danny and back again, trying to put the pieces together. I held the backstage pass and the safe deposit box key up for him to see.

  “I just need to get into our box,” I said.

  “Sir, typically we only allow the guest who requested the box to access it; in this case that would be Mr. Cole.”

  “Listen, Mr. Cole is in a meeting right now and he sent me down to pay the chauffeur for bringing our guitar back. Jesus, these guys. They get paid thousands to play the goddamn thing but can't remember to bring it with them.”

  He wasn't buying it. I jumped in before he could speak.

  “You can call Richard if you'd like. He's in room twenty-one-ten.”

  This impressed the clerk and he dialed the number.

  “Hello? Mr. Cole?”

  Even from this side of the counter I could tell that Alex's British accent was bullshit. It sounded more Ir
ish than anything, like a Lucky Charms cereal commercial. I had told him to keep it brief. He didn't.

  “Would you like me to describe the chap I sent down?”

  “No. That won't be necessary, sir.”

  “It's quite all right. He has long dark hair that needs a good washing. He's wearing jeans with a rip in the knee and a T-shirt with that horrible band Black Sabbath on it. No, wait, he's wearing a plain black T-shirt today.”

  “Okay, sir,” the clerk said into the receiver.

  “Now, if you could, be a mate and let him into the box. We need to pay off that arsehole of a chauffeur.”

  Red flooded into Danny's face as I choked back laughter. The clerk hung up and stared at the phone. He shook a set of keys over his head and walked toward the safe along the back wall. Danny and I followed.

  Box number 51 sat at waist level on a wall of numbered boxes. I unlocked the box and Danny pulled it from the wall and lifted the lid. A few items lay scattered around inside: passports, receipts and a bundle of tickets for that night's show but not a single dollar.

  “There's no fucking money in here,” I said to Danny.

  He stared into the box then slammed the lid closed and leapt around the vault stomping his feet and waving his arms in a silent temper tantrum until the gun fell down his pants leg and clattered across the tile floor. I put one finger to my lips, motioning for him to shut up.

  “Everything all right in there, sir?” the clerk asked from outside the doorway.

  “Sorry. We'll be right out,” I answered.

  I turned to Danny. His red face pulsed with his heavy breathing. I grabbed the bundle of tickets and stuffed them into my pocket.

  “Let's go,” I whispered. “We gotta get Alex and Frenchy and get out of here.”

  As we hurried across the hotel lobby I scanned the crowd for Richard Cole, a security guard or any other sign that someone was on to us. Something else stopped me cold: Emily. She stood across the lobby with Tina, Anna, Kyle and the rest of the Misty Mountain Hoppers. They lingered together near a couch in the back.

  “This way!” I shouted, pulling Danny around a corner.

  We shoved through a crowd of groupies and hurried down the hallway to the elevators. I pounded on the buttons. The numbers over the elevator door counted backward as the elevator crawled down from the twenty-first floor. I watched the lobby behind us for a sign that Emily or any of the Misty Mountain Hoppers were coming our way.

  When the elevator doors opened, we tried to charge forward but ran into a wave of partiers getting off. A lanky kid in a flowered shirt and denim vest slumped in the corner. His bell-bottoms stretched out across the floor of the elevator.

  “Let's go,” I told the group. “Get him out of here.”

  A pair of scrawny hippies grabbed the kid's arm and tried to yank him to his feet. They stumbled into each other and collided off the walls of the elevator. A small crowd formed outside the elevator.

  “Wake up, man,” I said, kicking his legs. “You gotta move.”

  His friends dropped his arms and stood in the middle of the elevator talking.

  “Maybe if we all lift on the count of three?” the shortest one said.

  Danny burst through them. He grabbed the kid's ankles and yanked. The force pulled the kid away from the wall and he slammed onto his back. His head ricocheted off the floor of the elevator and he groaned as Danny dragged him backward out of the elevator. Danny deposited him in the middle of the hallway and then shoved his way back onto the elevator.

  “Let's go,” he said as he jabbed at the elevator buttons.

  Back on the twenty-first floor, Alex opened the door to Richard's room and we slipped in to return the key and backstage pass. Alex and I put the bed back together and shoved Richard's clothes back into his suitcase. The hallways were filling back up with groupies and hangers-on.

  “Where's Frenchy?” I asked.

  “He's still in there,” Alex said, pointing down the hallway as we crept out of the room.

  “I saw Tina and Emily in the lobby.”

  “What the fuck are they doing here?”

  “They're with Emily's sister and the Misty Mountain Hoppers.”

  “Shit. How much did we get from the safe deposit box?”

  “Nothing.

  “Nothing? What are we gonna do?”

  “We're getting the fuck out of here.”

  The look on his face confirmed the plan I'd already formed on the way up. Get Frenchy. Get out. If we were lucky, Jimmy Page would pay Frenchy for the ‘58 Les Paul and we could escape from this mess with a few grand toward paying off Boogie. Maybe it would be enough. If we weren't lucky, we were all going to jail.

  Someone needed to go to Page's room and pull Frenchy out of there. We argued over which one of us would do it. Danny wanted to do it but Alex and I both knew that was a horrible idea. Alex flat out refused to do it. That left me. I wiped the sweat off my palms and headed down the hallway.

  TWENTY

  ARMS OF THE SECURITY GUARD STANDING OUTSIDE JIMMY PAGE'S ROOM DIDN'T SCARE ME. NOT THAT MUCH. OR THE FACT THAT HE LOOKED ABOUT THE SIZE OF A BALTIMORE COLTS’ LINEMAN AS HE LEANED OVER AND STARED AT ME THROUGH SLANTED EYES SHOVED INTO A BALD HEAD WITH A BUSHY HANDLEBAR MUSTACHE. NO. I WAS SCARED OF THE WAY HE ADJUSTED HIS JACKET. EVERY FEW SECONDS HE ROLLED HIS SHOULDERS AND TURNED AT THE WAIST, WHICH MADE ME THINK HE WAS PROBABLY ADJUSTING A PISTOL HOLSTER SOMEWHERE UNDER HIS ARM.

  He started talking even before I did.

  “Get the fuck out of here.”

  “My friend's in there.”

  “No, he isn't.”

  Through the door I heard guitars jamming loudly. One started to solo, stumbled a bit on some low notes and then ripped up the neck. A few seconds later the song fell apart into laughter.

  “His name's Frenchy, uh, Reginald. He's got a Fifty-eight Les Paul with him. Jimmy wanted to buy it.”

  He looked me over then decided I wasn't much of a threat. He was right. He poked his head around the door. I heard Frenchy's voice, then the door swung open.

  I walked slowly into the room, stepping around a large piece of luggage and a guitar case. Richard lounged on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette and talking on the telephone. Frenchy sat across from him in a chair tuning his Telecaster. Jimmy Page sat next to him.

  Jimmy seemed small even with the extra padding of a button-up shirt and blazer. Curly black hair hung in his pale face as he hunched over a guitar. A long black cord snaked across the floor to a tiny amplifier. Guitar cases cluttered the floor and an acoustic guitar lay on the bed. He and Frenchy traded off solos. Frenchy sounded pretty fucking good.

  The song stopped and Frenchy looked up.

  “Oh, hey, man. Jimmy, this is my friend Patrick.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  I scanned the room for the briefcase that might have the cash.

  “Uh, nice to meet you too.”

  I looked at Frenchy.

  “Sorry, French … I mean Reginald, we gotta get going.”

  “Really? What's the rush?” he asked.

  “Has Jimmy had a chance to look at the Les Paul?” I pushed things along. “We really have to get going.”

  “Okay. Let's take a look,” Jimmy said.

  Jimmy opened the case holding the ‘58 Les Paul and stared at it for a minute before picking it up and plugging it in.

  Frenchy fiddled around with an old blues tune. The muddy chords screamed from the tiny amp. He turned to Jimmy while he played.

  “I just learned this one.”

  “Jimmy Reed.” Jimmy nodded. “Bloody brilliant guitar player.”

  He threw a solo over what Frenchy played. I couldn't believe it. We came to rob the band and Frenchy was jamming with them. Richard put a finger into his ear and screamed into the phone, “I don't know. We're hanging out at the hotel for now. Jimmy's looking at a guitar. I said Jimmy might buy a guitar. I don't know. Reginald Chamberlain. Really? You've never heard of him. He's big-tim
e, man.”

  Frenchy and Jimmy played back and forth like that for a few minutes until the hotel door crashed open. Peter Grant barreled across the room. His presence filled the entire suite. The furniture seemed to shrink to get out of his way.

  “What's all this then?” he asked Richard.

  “Jimmy's buying a guitar.”

  “So who the fuck is this?” he asked, flipping a finger toward me.

  Richard shrugged and muttered something about me being with Frenchy and the guitar. By now, the jam session had sputtered to a halt.

  “Don't I know you, mate?” Peter asked me.

  “I don't think so.” I shrugged.

  Peter stared at me. Jimmy, Frenchy and Richard chattered behind us. In that big, bald head Peter was trying to place where he knew me from. I signaled to Frenchy for us to get the hell out of there.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” Frenchy spoke up. “We gotta roll.”

  “You guys staying for the show tonight?” Jimmy asked, lighting a cigarette.

  Frenchy looked up at me like a kid pleading for one more hour at the playground. I answered before he could.

  “No, man, I wish we could but we've got to get back.”

  “Are you sure? I can get you sorted with tickets.”

  This time I didn't look at Frenchy.

  “I wish we could. Can't tell you how much I wish we could but our ride is leaving. He has to work in the morning.”

  “But Patrick, didn't you—” Frenchy started to say.

  “It's real cool of you to offer, Jimmy. Really cool. Come on, Reginald, we better get going.”

  Jimmy laid the Les Paul back in the case and crouched over it, staring for a second before shutting the lid. He leaned in the bathroom doorway and swilled from a bottle of Jack Daniel's while Frenchy fumbled to put his Telecaster away.

  “You sure you want to sell this?” Jimmy asked Frenchy.

  “Yeah. That's what I do. I try not to get attached to them, ya know? Love 'em and leave 'em, right?”